Nutria hunting proposed along Bayou St. John

Rusty Costanza/The Times-Picayune archiveThe Bayou St. John Neighborhood Association has sought the services of a licensed trapper to rid the waterway of nutria. Signs of their feeding were evident when this photograph was taken in November.

Nutria have been tearing up the banks of the Mid-City waterway near Dumaine Street for months and seem to be expanding in population, prompting the Bayou St. John Neighborhood Association to seek the services of a licensed trapper and the New Orleans Police Department to consider a controlled shoot along the bayou.

Law enforcement-led nutria hunting became commonplace in Jefferson Parish in the mid-1990s, when then-Sheriff Harry Lee led the charge against the rodents, an invasive, quickly multiplying species that burrowed into the banks of the parish's drainage canals, threatening their stability. No such effort, however, ever became necessary in Orleans Parish - until now.

"It's being considered," said NOPD public information officer Bob Young, referring to a controlled hunt.

The problem in Bayou St. John is a small front in a much larger battle to control the herbivorous critters, who consume grasses by tearing them up at the roots, thus expediting the disappearance of the Gulf Coast's shrinking wetlands.

According to the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, which began conducting aerial surveys of nutria-borne damage to wetland grasses in 1998, the creatures -- which resemble a cross between a rat and a beaver -- were responsible for 90,000 to 100,000 acres of damage over a five-year period. Those numbers have been reduced by about 78 percent since 2002, when the department started its nutria control program, which offers hunters "$5 a tail" to help decrease the coastal population. Still, the problem persists.

"It's a microcosm of the wetland woes out there," said Mark Schexnayder, coastal adviser for the LSU AgCenter.

Nutria were first imported to Louisiana from South America in the 1930s to breed for their pelts. It didn't take long for the creatures to be released, either accidentally or intentionally, into the wild, where they found a bounty of food in the region's sugarcane and rice fields and, later, in the marshes.

"Way back in the '50s, they were a problem with crops," said Edmond Mouton, nutria control program manager for Wildlife and Fisheries. "Then the market expanded in the '60s and it rose in the '70s, where they were harvesting close to 2 million (pelts) a year."

After the nutria-fur market declined over the 1970s and '80s, however, "We started receiving reports of damage to coastal wetlands," Mouton said.

How nutria began frequenting the most visible part of Bayou St. John is unclear. According to Schexnayder, "There's always been a problem with nutria on the bayou and in City Park.

"They basically destroyed new wetland grasses we planted in City Park in June. It looks like a lawnmower went through there."

But this fall, the critters began burrowing in the banks, tearing up parts of the surface and forming large depressions.

"It's not safe," said Bobby Wozniak with the Bayou St. John Neighborhood Association. "People walk along the bayou every day."

When residents began keeping count in early November, they found about 12 nutria. By early December, the number was between 20 and 30. Now, the population is estimated to be around 50, and will continue to grow if left unchecked, Wozniak said.

"All of a sudden, they started growing, marching on us," Wozniak said, laughing.

The bayou's stable water levels and predator-free environment are bonuses for the nutria, Mouton said.

"There's a stable habitat for them," he said. "They're not disturbed by anything else."

That may soon change.

If NOPD decides to go forward with the hunt, it would need to submit a written declaration of intent to Wildlife and Fisheries, specifying the boundaries, participants and proposed duration of the hunting period, Mouton said. Wildlife and Fisheries would determine whether the hunt is justified, review the proposal and issue a permit for a set length, probably 30 or 60 days. NOPD would have to notify homeowners. The hunt would take place at night and be performed by "professional marksmen," he said.

"If there's a sign of nutria and they're digging in the bank and they're causing damage, that would give them enough justification," Mouton said.

However, Young said, the hunt is still "a very complex issue," as the bayou's near-horizontal plane could make shooting along it dangerous for property and passers-by.

"In Jefferson Parish, they were shooting down into an area with bulkheads on each side," Young said. "In Bayou St. John, there's no bulkheads," meaning police must study the potential deflection of shots fired on the banks or in the water. In addition, Moss Street would have to be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic during a hunt, Young said.

Because of those factors, the hunt "is nothing that's going to happen immediately," he said.

Because NOPD has not yet submitted a request, the Bayou St. John Neighborhood Association plans to go forward with an idea floated earlier in the fall to hire a private, licensed trapper to catch and dispose of the animals. Wozniak said he had started a collection among residents to finance the operation, and already has surveyed the damage with a local trapper.

In the meantime, Wozniak said, "I'd like to encourage people to buy nutria coats for the winter."